


Blood for Teeth

by Rosada



Category: Teen Wolf (TV)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Zombies, BAMF Stiles, F/M, M/M, Slow Build, Zombie Apocalypse
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2013-08-29
Updated: 2013-09-16
Packaged: 2017-12-25 00:44:23
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 4
Words: 13,700
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/946662
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Rosada/pseuds/Rosada
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>After the end of the world, two groups stand between the shattered remains of humanity and the ravenous horde—the National Pack Union (NPU) which unites the werewolves and other mythical creatures into a new pseudo-governmental regime under the control of one Derek Hale, and Sapiens, a glorified biker gang that heads the fight of humankind against the cannibalistic undead. Enter Stiles Stilinski, new recruit of the latter group, who is quickly learning that a bad day can always get worse.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Dead Meat

The nice thing about the world being over is that it's astoundingly quiet, and once you get used to it, you realize that silence is much better than the alternative. Well, not precisely silence. Stiles has been listening to the roar of his cycle for forty-something miles now as he tears along the shoddy dirt and asphalt path that had once been the road to the small Californian town of Needles. Had been. Before the Last Day. It was officially called The Last Day on Earth, which Stiles personally thought was a stupid name all around. If it was the last day on Earth, then why were they all still here, on earth? Yet nobody really asked his opinion, and everyone was content to call it the Last Day anyway. On the Last Day, a little over twenty years ago, they showed up. Freaks, biters, zoms, horde, rotters, whatever you wanted to call them, they had come to be in this world twenty-odd years ago and in their coming, had ended it. No one is sure why or even how they came, they just did. Just existed one day and started chowing down on everybody who was stupid enough to get near, which was everybody, because no one knew the rules yet. Stiles blinked into the blinding sun and momentarily wondered what his life would be like if the rules didn't exist, and decided that there was no way to imagine something like that. The whole thing was a set of absolutes, and the easiest absolute to grasp was the most important: Follow the rules or die. Simple shit, really. The rules were pretty simple too, like “don't ever go out unarmed” and “get bit, time to quit”, or his personal favorite, “there's the quick and there's the dead”. Nobody had ever written the rules down or anything like that, but everyone knew them nonetheless.

Everybody lived on the rules, even Stiles, who would often claim that he was more inclined to live on his bike. The near-shaved head, the black “S” tattooed in broad calligraphy on his forearm, the cycle itself, everything about him spelled “Sapiens”. After everything had caved in, two groups had ended up hanging on to life—the Sapiens and the NPU. NPU, those speciesist bastards, were sure that the plague was the fault of humans and thus humans had better be grateful for their protection and submit to the power of the Packs. They'd managed to pick up major weapons and tech when the world went to hell and their supernatural senses had made the slow, senseless biters a meager obstacle on their road to control. The Sapiens, on the other hand, was how humanity decided to fight back. They were the vagabonds, the illegal ones, the rejects on bikes that actually took the jobs to put someone's wife-husband-sister-son-whoever out of their eternal misery. They were the ones that actually bothered risking their lives and not just straightening suits and dropping a few grenades wherever convenient. They were Stiles' new family and he loved them to death. Literally. Sapiens didn't mind putting their asses on the line for humanity and the personal closure of the people they served, unlike certain werewolf bastards who used the end of the fucking world as a political power play. 

Taking a deep breath of the parched air, Stiles dragged himself out of his self-indulgent rant against the supernatural and focused on today's task of gathering intel and filling one request. He didn't have to look at the crumpled piece of paper in his jacket pocket to see the tangle of mousy brown hair and grimy eyes that the coroner had drawn up for him to hunt down. Wearing a pair of gray sweatpants and a white tee-shirt, Leona Wright had been on her way home from the gym when the world had ended all around her. She'd been bitten twenty years ago, but she wouldn't have aged. Wouldn't have died, not even shambling through the Mojave without food or water to sustain her, even with half of her right arm missing and all her soul flown away. No one was sure what made the biters keep on biting right up until you terminated their brain function because it shouldn't have been possible with all the previous laws of science, but this was a world after science. Outside of it. Nothing made any sense at all, especially not to Stiles. He didn't even particularly care. He just wanted to do the job, put the poor girl out of her suffering and see the sadly relieved lines on her mother's face. It was always that same look, and he didn't blame a one of them for making it. It was the face of closure, tragic but freeing in the knowledge that a loved one had been taken out of the undying hell that they lived in. They romanticized his job, mentally making him into a bizarre angel of deliverance from evil and honestly, Stiles just couldn't bring himself to take that away from people and announce that all he did for a living was smash skulls in. The more zoms he laid to rest, the more likely he was to have dinner on the table and a bed to sleep in. A transacted miracle. 

She would be out here somewhere in the town of Needles, given that most biters never strayed far from the places they had once called home except when a huge horde of them got moving. Another thing nobody understood about them. Why did they just stand there, in the lawns and shops and homes in which they had once lived, stationary until something that could be considered food wandered by? Why did some of them go about in eerie repetitions of their living activities, walking from home to office buildings or the park and then standing there as if they had forgotten the whole purpose in coming? Stiles just hoped that the girl had picked someplace easy to sneak into so that he could be done with it quickly and quietly. The zoms deserved some respect, he thought, because they had once been people too. Even if most of them were biters longer than he was a human. They had once been somebody special and important, and now they were just hollow shells of hunger and death. He clenched his teeth and drove on, trying not to think about the possibility that this could be his last mission, just like every one could be, and that if she had still been alive, Leona would have been a beautiful girl.  
He parked as soon as he saw the worn “Needles, 1 Mile” sign off to his right and hopped off his bike. From the gleaming side of his cycle he unstrapped his pride and joy, a baseball bat made of thick birch wood with a halo of nails hammered up and down the length. Not the quick and distant death that a gun granted, but more than adequate for putting down a biter without drawing too much attention to yourself. A gunshot could draw them from miles around, and Stiles just couldn't afford that kind of attention today. Not to say that he didn't bring a gun; a 9mm was holstered at his hip and an old hunting rifle of indeterminate make was slung across his back in case of emergencies. The bat just happened to be his preferred method; and while he had heard of other Sapiens using knives or even stakes to put down zoms with minimal mess, he didn't quite have the balls to get that close without a heavy weapon in his hand. It was only his third real, unaccompanied job after all and bitten was not where he wanted to end up. Even the thought of turning into one of those cold, gray beings who stumbled around until they either fed or were put out of their misery made his stomach actively turn. Adjusting his grip on the bat, he headed quietly down the road and into the once living town.

He hadn't expected to find her so easily, not really. Maybe he would have to hunt through a few buildings, search her old address that had been scribbled on the bottom of the paper, something like that. That wasn't the case, though, because Leona Wright was standing outside of what appeared to be an old restaurant. A faded sign said “Dunkin' Donuts” in orange and pink letters across the building, but it meant nothing to Stiles. Just another remnant of a world that had passed before he was even born. The only other biter was a man standing up the street, leaning against a gate that sagged under his weight. Hell, he had probably been standing there for years, unable to turn the lock to grant himself freedom. For some reason, that was more tragic than if he had just been another mangled corpse for Stiles to see. Returning his attention to Leona, he did his best to approach her slowly and from behind. Still, the scent of something living and the low rhythm of his heart gave him away and she slowly spun, mouth open in a toothy grimace of hunger. He danced out of the way of her clumsy swing and paused for a moment, calculating everything. Analyzing the damage to her arm that inhibited her motion, even if she didn't feel it. The hideous pallor of her skin from years of slow decay, the black bilious liquid that oozed out of her throat and ran down her chin, perhaps something she had eaten once that now was caught in a throat that hardly swallowed. She should have been beautiful, he thought, catching himself off-guard. She should have been lovely and peachy, the kind of girl all the boys would buy sodas for in town, with delicate fingers and a shy smile. Instead, she was...this. A thing, a creature, something to be put out of her misery and Stiles returned the snarl of hostility, aimed not at her but whatever foreign invader had taken away every part of her life but the actual motion of it. Swinging the bat up was easy, watching it collide with her skull and crush the side of her face to a messy black-and-red pulp was not. She moaned louder this time and he struck again, aiming for the back of her head and smashing the joining of her spinal cord and brain. A rotten stench wafted up and he wasn't sure if he gagged because of that or because of the way that once his bat made contact it felt for all the world like crushing an egg in his grasp. Disgusting and hateful and he hated all of this, but he still did it. He still did it because he could remember the look on his father's face when his mother had died on the table before they could even chop off her bitten arm. He remembered the way his mouth had tightened into a single, hard line as he put the gun to her head and pulled the trigger. He remembered that he loved his mother and that somebody, somewhere probably felt just like him for each and every one of these biters. He hated it, and he did it anyway. That was a Sapiens' duty. 

Leona crumpled to the ground and Stiles looked up to see the other biter straining harder at his fence, having noticed all the noise and motion in this desolate town. But the gate still held after all these years, and when no other freaks appeared, Stiles decided to give the poor girl her last honors. After dragging her out to the grass so that her body would be returned to the earth, he knelt on one leg and began to arrange her to the most dignified posture he could manage. Her arms he crossed over her chest, and her legs were straightened out beneath her, hair tugged out of her face and shirt pulled down to cover her stomach. You could still see what she had become instead of the blissful “sleeping” state that humans took on when newly dead, eyes lightly closed and body peacefully intact. No, she was still a victim of the ravages of time and the abruptness with which her life had ended, but this was the best he could do. It was the best any of them could do, and it would have to be enough. He didn't even know any prayers to say over her grave, though he heard that was custom in some churches that still bothered burying their dead. Instead he just gave the body a nod and turned, heading back for his cycle. 

From here he intended to start heading northeast, in the direction of his hometown of Beacon Hills. It was at least a two-day drive despite the lack of traffic, given how parts of the roads had been worn down by time and he would probably stop overnight at the Gas Station in order to refill his tank. The bike got good miles out here in the middle of nowhere, but a look at his tank told him it was better to be safe than to be sorry. Also, despite the noise a motorcycle made, didn't attract as many biters as you would think. They just weren't as interested as they were in larger vehicles; some vestigial knowledge from a past life telling them that bigger containers meant more humans to feed on. Even if he was just a new kid at all of this, Stiles wasn't quite ready to break rules that meant the difference between life and death for himself or anyone else. This was his chance, his way to prove that he was good at something other than bouncing around in classroom chairs or groaning his way through field work. They'd tried putting him in other jobs, but a distinct inability to concentrate and general disregard for the rules made it impossible for his small town to place him properly. Instead they had sent him to the Sapiens' base, just outside of Beacon Hills, to be under the watch of a man known as Deaton. Before the Last Day he had been an animal caretaker and renowned healing hand, but now he headed many of the Sapiens' operations and did his best to train new recruits to the lifestyle. He had told Stiles once that he had a unique “spark” that allowed him to set events in motion, and Stiles had only been sure that he wasn't going to be setting himself on fire for anyone at any time in the near future. Deaton was a weird guy, but you could tell he had a kind heart and the base would do just about anything for him.

Stiles shook himself out of it and looked up sharply, spotting something odd on the eastern horizon. A long, gray-black line covered part of the horizon and if he squinted, he could make out a low cloud of dust appearing above it. The only thing that could stir dust was motion, and that thought alone was enough to make him nail the accelerator and rip his bike towards the East. Gunning it, he got close enough that the binoculars in his bag were able to make out what was causing the stir and he nearly choked on his gasp. Shit. There were hundreds, maybe even a thousand zoms out there in one big horde, and they were headed almost in the same direction that he was. They could have congregated and headed up this way from Former New Mexico or somewhere else down south, but he had neither the time or the energy to spend on it. They couldn't move as fast as he was moving, but he still figured he only had four days to get back to base to warn them. Every Sapiens member in the place probably wouldn't be enough for this horde, but they might be able to divert the group or at least evacuate the town. As he cursed up a storm against everything that was going to hell with his day, Stiles re-oriented himself in the direction of Beacon Hills and roared off without a second thought.

It was only five miles up the road when he was stopped again by a glittering line of spikes laid out in the road. If it hadn't been for the angle of the sun, he might have driven right over them and that would have been the end of it. As it was, he had to yank his bike to a screeching halt, but before he could turn around a woman's voice issued a harsh “Put your hands up!”

Whipping his head around, he came face to face with a blonde in dark military attire and a semi-automatic pointed at his chest. 

“What the fuck?” The hiss was low and accusatory from Stiles, but he put his hands above his head as she jabbed the gun at him. A thousand questions whirled through his mind, but most of them were answered when he saw the burnished gold insignia on her chest. NPU. Fuck, fuck, fuck! What were they doing setting a roadblock up out here? Trying to catch Sapiens? He knew that the NPU classified the Sapiens groups as criminals, but they'd always been protected by the Mojave and the fact that it was simply more effort to come out and find them than it was worth. Yet here the woman was...with a partner, too. Masculine by frame and the removal of his helmet confirmed it; they both regarded him with contempt for a second before the woman decided to answer. “I'm Officer Erica Reyes and you're under arrest for suspected criminal behavior. Put down your weapon and I won't shoot. Yet.” Both of them also had the inhumanly beautiful faces of werewolves, skin flawless even when dirty, no scars or markings anywhere. Stiles dropped the bat, removed his guns, and shoved the lot toward Officer Erica with a foot. The man stepped forward and collected his things, but not before pausing to growl menacingly at him. Then she paced forward and produced a pair of handcuffs, roughly cuffing him behind the back and turning to her partner. “Get the four-wheeler. We're taking him back to Major Hale.”


	2. Deadland's Finest

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> In which Stiles Stilinski's day continues to get fucking worse, courtesy of the boys (and girls) in blue.

After the two NPU officers—he'd learned the man's name was Isaac—had handcuffed him and stuffed a bag over his head, they tossed Stiles on the back of a four-wheeler and roared off to an apparently nearby base that none of the Sapiens had known about. If he made it out of this alive, it would be valuable information for all of them, but the chances of that were looking slimmer and slimmer. People didn't just come back from getting arrested by the NPU, not unless they were so completely and utterly innocent that they were on their way to sainthood. Usually the NPU just issued a “formal order for execution” and the conclusion there was rather evident. Unless the person in question ended up being turned because one of their officers couldn't control themselves and bit down. Inside the bag, Stiles scrunched his eyes to the point of pain and wished he didn't have to think about his best friend, Scott McCall, every time the issue of werewolves was discussed. _He's as good as dead to you, Stilinski! He might as well be dead!_ Despite his best efforts, shouting at his brain didn't stop the influx of memories and he was forced to picture every agonizing detail of the day he heard the news. 

A group of them had all gone out together; two older Sapiens, Scott, and himself. Just a simple job, put down two zoms and head home to collect their reward. The whole thing was nothing more a training session in tracking and tagging the right biter on one of their first missions on the bikes. At age sixteen, both boys had been ready to burst with excitement at the thought of their first mission, laughing and joking the whole way out of town. He could still recall the warm depths of Scott's brown eyes when he laughed at something Stiles' quipped, the perfectly white teeth lining his crooked jaw in a brilliant smile. Scott had been the one to ground Stiles with his natural charm and endless patience, always willing to go along with Stiles' latest scheme and bail his dumb ass out whenever he got into trouble. For as long as they could remember, the two boys had stuck together like they were glued in place, as close to brothers as ties could allow. Then, on that day, the day of the simplest job in the whole world, life had gone straight to hell in a handcart. He could remember one of the Sapiens yelling at him to get out of here, get out of here now, right now Stiles! Like a coward, he'd whipped his bike around and gunned it so hard towards home he left ruts in the dirt beneath him. Rather than the ghastly moans of biters, he heard behind him what sounded an awful lot like motors running at full speed, but hadn't turned to even look back.

It hadn't been until twelve hours later, when the man alone came back bearing the news. His partner had been gunned down, and the boy known as Scott McCall had been bitten. Not by a biter, no, almost worse, because he wasn't even dead. He was turned, a werewolf now. “Recruited”, they called it, as though he'd only gone off and joined some army out of his own free will. They made it sound as though the NPU ever gave anyone a choice once they were bitten, rather than telling the true story that he'd been bitten by some crazy-ass werewolf and dragged off to god-knows-where to become part of a “pack”. He would be forced to serve the new government of America that wanted to subjugate an entire species beneath them because it wasn't like enough people were dying out here with the goddamn living dead banging down their doors. They'd recruited Scott and Stiles had never seen his best friend, his brother, his other half ever since and probably never would again. Melissa had lost her only son, the last member of her family, and walked around for days in an unshakeable trance. For Stiles, it had been like having his hand severed at the wrist with a rusty hacksaw and not anybody, not even the godly Doctor Alan Deaton, could patch him up again. The wound just kept bleeding and bleeding, but Stiles never died from it. Now Stiles was tied to the back of a four-wheeler, forced to cling on to his captor to keep from rolling off the side while zipping along to what was likely his imminent demise. He wasn't the type of person to hate a whole species because he wasn't stupid enough to believe that anything was evil down to its genetic coding, but he definitely hated every werewolf he'd come into contact with so far. Maybe if they hadn't hated him first then he wouldn't bother hating them back, but no one ever believed that logic. 

Right now, though, he was fairly sure that he had good reason to hate these two officers with all of his heart. The woman, Erica, had been the one to stuff him in this hot bag and state with a smirk in her voice that he had “the right to shut the fuck up”. Then Isaac had hauled him onto this four-wheeler, and seemed to be taking every opportunity he could find to hit road obstacles that would jostle Stiles about as uncomfortably as possible. By the time they reached their unknown destination, his fingers were so stiff he was sure they'd have to be pried loose and he was on the verge of hyperventilating from not being able to get enough air inside the bag. That, fortunately, was ripped off his head and his corneas nearly fused as the bright sunlight desert sunlight hit his eyes with blinding force. Hissing and shaking his head, Stiles was dragged along by Erica and Isaac so harshly that his feet were hardly touching the ground until they were inside an air-conditioned building of unremarkable brick and tile. Everything looked hideously blue for a long moment, yet he stared as angrily as he could at Erica's back while she sashayed into an office that he assumed belonged to “Major Hale”. He couldn't hear what was being said in the room and instead took the moment to sneer at Isaac, who returned the gesture with a cruel smirk on his too-elegant face. Then, at some unknown signal, he hauled Stiles forward so quickly that he nearly ran into the door and ended up tripping his way into the office. Off to the left was Erica, also wearing a look of disdain that he figured was permanent by now, and sitting at the desk was apparently the infamous Major Hale. For a law enforcement officer, he looked scruffy and unshaven, eyes darting about dangerously and shoulders raised in an intimidating gesture. So that's how he wanted to do this. Stiles narrowed his eyes and puffed out his own chest, realizing that he still looked like an eighteen year old punk and nothing more.

“Riding alone in the Mojave, no radio or communications device....a nine millimeter with a single clip, a baseball bat with a crack in it, and a deer-hunting rifle older than the Last Day.” The sneer in his voice was so thick Stiles could probably have used it to bludgeon someone, but he refused to avert his eyes. No matter how fearsome the other man's were, or how positive Stiles was that they flashed red for a moment, he kept on staring. If he was going to die today, he'd have the pleasure of playing chicken with this asshole first. 

“I thought that “Sapiens” means thinking, or capable of comprehending logic, but I've seen children that were more dangerous than you, boy. You've made some astoundingly poor choices, in both your group of friends and in your weaponry choices out there in the middle of nowhere.” That was it, Stiles couldn't hold his tongue any longer. 

“Every pup is only as vicious as his bitch.” he snarled, feeling his lip curl up. Lame, but it got a reaction when Isaac and Erica both snapped their heads to look at him, then back at Hale. _Surprised I haven't pissed my pants yet?_

“Show some respect.” The growl was Erica's this time, and she looked quite ready to rip his face off for daring to talk back to her superior. In fact, she looked like doing just that would put a smile on her brightly lipsticked mouth and a twinkle in her eyes. He could almost see the blood staining her face right now, and honestly, she terrified him more than Hale himself. 

Hale's eyes hardened at him, but he didn't speak again. Instead he merely nodded at Erica, who reached over to snatch Stiles' arm and nearly rip his sleeve off while rolling it up. The large tattoo of a letter “S” on his arm was like a black brand of sin that condemned him in all of their eyes. 

“Let the records state that the suspect bears the markings and gear of the dangerous and illegal organization known as Sapiens. This is sufficient evidence to prove his guilt, and I, Derek Hale, shall take him to the Southwestern Headquarters for official execution.” So much for the due process of law or rights to a fair trial. Those laws belonged on the other side of the Last Day and Stiles had no rights to them. All he could do was listen to the bored tone in Major Hale's voice and do his best to swallow his fate.

He was going to die. That was it. Not by biters, not fighting and kicking and screaming for his last seconds, not ripped to pieces or burned alive. Just shot in the back of the head for belonging to the wrong side of this argument, without dignity or honor. He didn't even have the presence of mind to be afraid about it, because it seemed like a great big joke that no one was willing to call out yet and he just kept waiting for the punchline. Was it shock that kept him from being frightened? Stupidity? Surely there was no more room for disbelief in his mind; if he believed in werewolves and biters then he could certainly believe in his own mortality. It all simply felt distant and detached as he was hauled back outside and tossed into the back of some sort of large van, crashing his shoulder against a gate that separated the passengers from the driver. It was like watching a movie where everything was still happening to someone else, somewhere else, and he was hardly even surprised when Hale got in the front seat of the van and put keys in the ignition. His bat was tossed in the spare front seat and while Stiles was curious as to why it was there at all, he knew that it wouldn't do him any good at all. If he so much as reached a finger through the mesh to touch it, the werewolf would snap the damn thing off and there went his daring escape plan.

So it made sense that the only thing that succeeded in waking Stiles up was the realization that late-morning sunlight was glaring in through the windshield and they were heading due east—straight towards the massive horde he had encountered earlier. Jolting upright, Stiles tensed first and then looked over at Hale, who didn't appear to have a single care in the world. 

“Why the hell are we going east?” There might have been a tremor in Stiles' voice, but he would never have admitted to it.

“Because that's where Headquarters is.” said Hale, looking back at him like he was pretty slow for not having picked up on this yet. 

“I know, jackass, but—don't you know what's out there, man? Haven't you guys seen the horde yet?” Hale didn't have to speak because the incredulous eyebrow said it all. Stiles felt terror tightening at his throat and he was sure his voice reached previously unheard pitches with his next shout.

“You don't know?! How can you not know that? There must be a thousand of them out there and--” Hale cut him off with a glare that could peel paint. 

“Shut up, kid. I know you don't want to die, but it's a little late for that now. I can hear your heartbeat and I'm going to know if you're lying to me.” Stiles could have shrieked at him, but he did his best to calm down and keep his heart rate even in this one, single, crucial moment. 

“You are driving straight into the biggest horde of biters I have ever seen and if you don't do something in the next five minutes then they are going to sideswipe us and we are going to be eaten alive.” The words hung in the air for a few moments and Hale looked like he wanted to say something, but couldn't figure out how to phrase it. They both knew he hadn't heard any change in the regular beat of Stiles' heart, no hitch to indicate a falsehood. To make his frustrated point, Stiles turned his head and glared out the window towards the southeast. There it was again, that single menacing gray line that was about to be the death of them both.

“We can make it. Besides, even if they surround the car, they'll just walk past it.” Is this guy out of his fucking mind? Did he legitimately have a lobotomy at some point? It was the only way that Stiles could possibly fathom that Hale hadn't ever seen or apparently heard anything at all about horde zoms. It was like the dude lived under a rock or something, and Stiles was wondering in the back of his mind if it was possible for an eighteen year old to have a stress-induced heart attack.

“No, no they are not going to just walk around it! Have you ever even encountered a horde? Are you stupid? Suicidal?” Hale's blank stare answered the question once again, and Stiles wondered if the man could muster up more than twenty words at a time. Stiles felt as though he had just eaten an entire bag of cold rocks with the way his stomach sank at that look. “You haven't ever seen horde zoms. Oh, this is fucking priceless. I'm about to be eaten alive by biters all because the jackass that arrested me didn't bother to put out patrols and his city-slicker ass hasn't ever seen how hordes function before!” His voice was still frantically high and he started to pant, bordering on hysterics. Breath caught in his throat and he started coughing, heart hammering so loudly in his chest he was pretty sure it was going to bust out and fall on his lap in a bloody mess before the freaks could even get here. Of all the damn times to have a panic attack, this might be the one that actually ended up killing him. 

Then the car slammed to a stop and Stiles hit the mesh gate again, unable to put his arms out to stop himself. He groaned angrily, but his captor just looked over at him expectantly. 

“Tell me about them, quickly. Then tell me how we can get out of this.” There wasn't a question anywhere in that statement; it was an order at best. Stiles still felt his eyes widen with the possibility that they might, maybe live through this with all the good luck in the world on their side, and he did his best to shuffle himself upright. 

“On the Last Day, hordes were the ones that took the cities. Zoms like being in hordes and nobody knows why, but we do know that it makes them more active. More violent, more prone to eating everything they come across. The larger the horde, the more vicious it is. Big hordes have a tendency to go after targets like entire towns, whereas a regular zom usually just sort of staggers around after food. Hordes are like locusts or something, I don't know. They'll eat anything and everything that gets in their way, and if you get caught in one, you're going down. There's no way to fight it. You can only run and hide, man.” Stiles was still trying to get his breathing under control, but at least it looked like the werewolf was starting to believe him on this count. Vaguely. 

“I'm trusting you on this one, kid. If you lied to me and try to make a break for it, I will personally hunt you down and rip your throat out with my teeth.” The words slapped Stiles in the face, reminding him that the person driving this car was almost as much of a threat as the things that were about to overtake it. He swallowed, eyes wide, and then looked out the window again to distract himself from the dark look of murder on Hale's face.

“Yeah, well, there's some guys right out there who are willing to do that for you, so if you could drive us behind a rock or a tree or anything out here that might hide us, that would be really nice at the moment.” The van was yanked into gear and Stiles landed hard on his arms, hissing in pain as they swerved across the rocky terrain. While Stiles normally would have cursed up a storm and called Hale every foul name in the book by this point, it didn't really seem as though it would have any effect and he concentrated more on not breaking his wrists. Breathe. Fight. Survive. The van rattled and rocked due to whatever it was they were driving over, slamming Stiles' face and shoulder into the floor repeatedly before coming to an abrupt halt that pitched him forwards yet again. He looked through the mesh to find Hale staring out at the side mirrors, one hand on what appeared to be a high-powered submachine gun. 

“Don't! You fire one round out of that thing and you'll bring the whole horde down on us, stupid! They're attracted to noise!” He snarled through the mesh just loud enough to get Hale's attention and glare at him once again. This time Stiles just returned the angry grimace and twisted himself around. “Let me out of the cuffs, give me my bat, and I'll take care of it.” 

“How do I know you're not just going to take off?” If he could have, Stiles would have stomped his foot on the ground like a frustrated child at that little remark. This guy seemed to exist for the sole purpose of infuriating him.

“Because, dipshit, we're in the middle of the desert and I don't have any water, food, or transportation other than my legs. Do I look like a moron to you?” 

“Absolutely.” This time, Stiles did make a frustrated noise aloud that was only barely short of an angry scream.

“Fine! Then get out of the van and just stand next to it! I don't care what you do, I just don't want to end up fucking eaten! Look, I kill zoms for a living, okay? That's what Sapiens do, it's our job. Let me out, give me my bat, and I'll take care of any stragglers.” For some unknown reason, this appeal of logic actually seemed to work and Stiles was surprised to find his cuffs being unlocked. Rubbing at his raw wrists, he shuffled to the back of the van and let himself out into the hot midday sun. Blinking against the hard light, he ran around the side and reached through the window, grabbing his bat just as Hale threw open his door and rounded the front of the van in what seemed like a single bound. Whatever. He didn't have time to marvel at werewolf biology at the moment. Two drooling freaks were approaching, moaning happily at the thought of chowing down on them.

“Not today, assholes!” Maybe he was also a wee bit joyful at the thought of braining these two fuckers because he'd had one hell of a bad day and beating the hell out of something wasn't bad stress relief. Bat twirling in his hand, Stiles dashed forward and ducked to the side to avoid the swinging arms of the first biter then brought his arm around in a brutal swing that caught it across the jaw. Gore and bone flew to the side and sprayed across the dirt in a dramatic arc, and Stiles decided that after so long, things you saw just didn't bother you anymore. Even missing half its face, the zom swung around with predictable determination and the partner followed. Two men, one that appeared to be wearing a generic t-shirt dirtied and tattered by time over mostly destroyed jeans. The other one had been asleep when the world ended, and his boxer shorts were mercifully held together. Stiles leaped back and snarled at the pair, bringing his bat around and clocking the now jaw-less zom again, shattering its skull and ending the pseudo-life it lived. Zom number two had to stumble over the fallen body which gave Stiles a moment to stand his ground and square his footing, a position that he used to duck low and catch the biter's legs to bring it to its knees. From there it was a single home-run blow to the back of the skull that removed most of it and the creature crumpled to the ground with a final enraged moan. Stiles took a slow, satisfied breath of the disgusting scent of rot and turned around to see what had happened to his own companion. 

“ Dammit kid, help! Help me!” The call jerked him out of his floating, victorious reverie. Whirling, he found Hale being approached by another walker, and unable to do anything about it. The gun was still in the car, too far to grab and defend himself. Stiles was frozen as he watched the other man's face contort and ripple, giant fangs extending from his lips and his brow furrowing to an animal snarl. Claws and teeth; so much pure power that Stiles' breath got lost again on the way to his lungs and he felt rooted to the spot by a primal fear he didn't even know existed. The biter was, predictably, not disturbed at all and kept coming at Hale, who slashed out with his claws and knocked the reaching hands away. Someone fortunately pressed play on Stiles' brain and the world whipped into focus.

“Heads up!” he yelled, taking his bat and pitching it end-over-end at the duo. Hale caught it by the grip with an impossible ease and ducked around the zom with as much precision as Stiles had used. Blood flew and the zom, a dirty woman in a ragged dress, found her end with the back of her neck and head scattered across the ground. Then the man, no, the beast standing over her body stared at Stiles and he was rooted to the spot by the glowing red eyes. Inhuman, rage-filled and purely terrifying up until the second that they weren't. Then they were just regular, hazel-green eyes staring at him with something that looked akin to curiosity. They stared at each other for a moment, then Hale stood back and looked down at the bat in his hand.

“Why did you do that? You gave me your only weapon, the only thing defending you from me ripping you apart.” Of all things, the man looked...legitimately concerned about that. As though he hadn't been planning on having Stiles killed anyway, as though he was actually surprised that Stiles would have given a shit about his life. 

“Depends on how you define “only”. I still might be able to outwit you. Besides, your uneaten body the only thing standing between me and the entire NPU coming out to hunt my scrawny ass to do something that I can't actually describe right now but is still likely so hideous that it will make me wish for death. So, y'know, you got the bat.” It wasn't a lie, exactly, but it wasn't the only truth to the matter. Stiles had seen people eaten by zoms before, a few times throughout his life. You never forgot the screaming, the way the biters looked grotesquely happy with their kill as they pulled muscle, organ, and bone from their still-writhing victims. You didn't forget it, and Stiles had promised himself that he would never see it again if there was anything he could do about it. At least half the reason his arm had a huge “S” on it and he had simply turned away from the needle.

“Do you have a name, or is it just Major Asshole forevermore?” he asked, trying to shake the silence that had awkwardly descended between them.

“Derek. My name is Derek Hale. Don't give people your bat.” 

“Stiles Stilinski, and lame-o Bat Kid just saved your furry ass. Guess you were right about some people being young and dangerous.” 

With that, he trotted back over to the van, noticing that it was sagging oddly to one side and frowning to himself. All the pride at his snarky comment moments ago was gone, and instead he felt fear course through him as he dropped to his knees and examined where one tire had been blown out by a sharp rock. 

“Uh...Derek? Major problem.” He stood, turning and stepping aside to point out the tire. “We're not going anywhere.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Well, the pair that slays together stays together. Sorry this chapter is a bit late, everyone, I had a few bus mishaps and was unable to get to my computer yesterday. I hope you can all forgive me and enjoy this chapter! 
> 
> Next up: Can Stiles and Derek spend an entire night in the desert together without brutally murdering one another?


	3. Two Dead Boys

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> One bright day in the middle of the night, two dead boys came out to fight. Back to back they faced each other, drew their swords and shot one another. A deaf policeman heard the noise, and came to rescue two dead boys.
> 
> Derek and Stiles spend an afternoon together, and miracle of miracles, no one gets ripped to shreds.

For a long moment, Stiles was entirely sure that Derek was going to blame this on him and rip his head clean off his body. He looked pissed enough to do it, that's for sure. Stiles almost flinched as he watched the other man's teeth clench and his brow furrow deeply, what sounded almost like a low snarl emanating from his person as he glared first at Stiles, then at the offending tire. If looks could kill, Stiles would have been cold and dead before he hit the ground. The long silence didn't help calm his jittery nerves either, and he was on the verge of saying something, anything at all just to snap the tension that was somehow worse than the roaring rage he had expected. Derek surprised him by speaking first after a long-suffering sigh that Stiles was quite familiar with after living with his put-upon father for years. 

“Well, there's nothing for it. I'm going to have to call out to the rest of my pack and hope they can send something out here to come and get us.” Stiles blinked, eyes wide at the suggestion. Confusion and no small amount of hope colored his face, drawing his hand away from where he nervously gnawed at the side of his finger.

“You can do that? Do you get radio out here this far in the desert? I can't get it more than five miles out of town and--” He was cut off by another scorching look from Derek, which he was quickly learning was apparently a Derek Hale specialty. Not that he expected the dude to be sunshine and daisies while trapped in the middle of the damn desert with a punk he was hoping to kill, but Stiles had seen people look more pleasant while having Deaton stick needles in some not-very-fun places to stitch them up. Whatever moment of camaraderie they had shared over Stiles saving him had now dissipated and they were back to the stage of uneasy truce. 

“I'm going to call them _our way._ I'm only hoping they can hear me this far out in the desert.” It took Stiles a moment to connect the dots, then he nodded, impressed. Part of him wondered where these beings drew the line between wolf and man, given that they seemed to possess nearly equal traits of both. How did you even classify something like that? Could it be attributed to recombinant DNA changing their genetics? Some sort of genetic splicing, perhaps, or even an entirely different species? If that was true, though, then how did they succeed in turning others with mostly positive side effects? The logical part of Stiles' brain shut down the smaller, more imaginative side of his brain that whispered that perhaps Deaton's bizarre campfire stories about days long past had more truth to them than anyone believed. After all, once all of the usual scientific theories had been negated, was there not room to consider something more fantastical? Logic argued that there was always a rational, reasonable solution that fell within a given set of parameters, but the rest stated that those parameters didn't really seem to apply to the world as a whole any longer. Perhaps werewolves were just real, honest magic. 

“What?” The deadpan voice drew him out of his mental debate, snapping into motion and almost losing his balance at having been taken by surprise. He must have been staring, though, because Derek only arched a lone brow at him. 

“Nothing. I was just thinking about something...” he trailed off, waving a hand dismissively “...weird.” Derek's face was pure, sarcastic lack of surprise and Stiles rolled his eyes at him in return. Asshole. 

“You're going to want to hold off on the call of the wild there, buddy. It could be hours before they get past us, and even then, you don't want them to turn around and come back for us. I like my internal organs to stay internal, thanks.” He was chattering again, this time running a hand over his buzzed hair and leaning back against the hot surface of the car as he attempted to distract himself from the very real possibility that this lucky break was only temporary, and they could be devoured at any minute. Not the way he had pictured himself dying, and definitely not with this jerk. Funnily enough, Derek looked as though he was thinking the exact same thing. 

“How many of them are there?” At least he was learning to ask the right questions now, but the truth was that Stiles didn't know. It was usually hard to get an accurate count of horde numbers, given that most zoms looked the same as the next, and when they all herded together like that it was nearly impossible to count while keeping a safe distance. 

“Too many, in my opinion. You're the one with the super-ears, why don't you tell me?” Rolling his head back with a thunk, Stiles closed his eyes and turned his face up to enjoy the warmth of the sun. It was October now, and even California was starting to have cooler days that made Stiles crave the touch of sunlight on his skin. A quick glance at Derek showed that he appeared to be listening to the noise the horde was making; ghastly moans and shuffling footsteps that confused Stiles' less sensitive human ears. So, instead of trying to figure it out himself, Stiles enjoyed the rare mental peace that came with a fading adrenaline high and wished quietly he could fall asleep right here under the sun. Today had so far been exhausting, and it was making a spectacular show of not getting better. He had completed his job only to be arrested, manhandled, threatened with execution, almost killed by biters, and now on the receiving end of a werewolf's bad attitude. Just fabulous. Masochism made him fantasize about having a nice, hot shower with real heated water and perhaps a bar of soap, sluicing away all the dust and blood from his skin. It was truly rare to get a heated tub due to the effort it took preparing one, but Stiles was almost willing to heat it himself if it meant getting the thick layer of grime off his skin. 

“There must be over seven hundred, close to a thousand.” He cracked an eyelid to look at Derek, who was now wearing an expression of mild terror. Good. Stiles had begun to think that the guy didn't know what fear was, and if you didn't fear anything, you were going to end up biter bait pretty damn quick. He sighed, shrugging and dropping his shoulders as he faced Derek more directly. The scowl hadn't faded, giving Stiles the hint that he was expecting an actual response to that.

“It's a huge horde. Bigger than I've ever seen before, I'll say that. They must have been gathering numbers for a couple of states now, but I have no idea what riled them up or why they haven't disbanded yet. I need to warn my people, too, because if those zoms are still going strong in about a day or so, they'll hit my town. Fence or not, we'd go down and I'm not letting that happen.” This time he makes a point of looking Derek directly in the eye. They stare for a stretching moment, then look away from each other. 

“You're still arrested.” Derek comments, and Stiles snorts. 

“Not much gratitude to the guy that saved you a half-hour ago.” Derek looks like he wants to say something stern, then changes the direction of his words at the last minute. Watching the fumble is rather amusing, and Stiles finds himself smirking at the other man.

“Fine. I'll forget that I arrested you, _if_ you tell me everything you know about this horde and walkers in general. Remember, you need me to save you too.” Stiles grits his teeth and looks long and hard at Derek before leaning back against the van and drumming his fingers on the metal side. His adrenaline is all gone now, and the normal buzz in the back of his mind has started to make his body twitchy again. Concentration is already difficult for Stiles, and now Derek is putting him entirely on the spot and he feels more nervous than ever before.

“O-kay, walkers. Not much is known about them, other than they showed up about twenty years ago and have been here ever since. Animals won't eat them, not even carrion feeders. Blowing off their limbs doesn't work, and there's even stories about limbs that keep moving after having been severed. They don't actually need to eat, but it seems to be the only thing they exist for. They'll chow down on anything with a pulse, and typically prefer the “swarm” attack to take down their prey.” He looks over at Derek and wonders briefly if he's just reviewing information that he knows already, but Derek seems to be paying rapt attention. 

“When they work themselves up into hordes like that, they usually go on for a while like that before spontaneously breaking apart. Otherwise, biters typically just stand still. Some of them move around in routine patterns, but I've seen them with vines growing up their legs from all the standing they do. Until something catches their attention, they're basically shells. Something in their brains is keeping them alive and making them act the way that they do, but no one knows what it is. Which is why the only way to kill a biter is to beat its brains in. That defies all the previous laws of science and nature.” Not that science and nature weren't completely bizarre to begin with, but originally you couldn't cut something in two or not feed it for five years and have it live. Zoms did all that and more, surpassing any precedent knowledge the scientific community had, according to Deaton. 

“Other than that, they don't appear to have many preservation instincts, as you witnessed earlier, and they're not really able to calculate attacks. They just keep swinging and grabbing until they succeed or die. If you get bit, the only thing to do is either cut it off or have someone put you out of your misery.” Derek just nodded at that last part, seeming terribly far away the conversation for a split second. 

“No cure.” Derek mumbled, and for some reason, that was all he needed to say. Stiles got the picture. 

Then Stiles jumped, flailing slightly at his stupidity at having forgotten to mention the rules. Derek was clearly from a city, he didn't know which of the three, but a city nonetheless. City-slickers lived in walled remains of the once great cities of the United States, and a person protected by the NPU would have probably enjoyed the armed guards that patrolled their perimeter. The city folk usually didn't know about the rules, which is why they stayed in their cities while everyone else was left outside to starve or be eaten. That was something he would find time to be bitter about later, though, because at the moment he was dealing with the fact that Derek was currently out here, and didn't know about the rules.

“Oh, yeah, and there's rules too. The rules. Capitalize that as you will. You have to know them if you want to live out here. Like “never go anywhere unarmed” and “travel in groups when you can” and “never touch or take anyone's bike, you monumental jerk”, in case you were wondering about that. I'm going to want my baby back, unharmed.” He scowled at Derek, who only looked nonplussed at his attempted ferocity. Whatever. He was getting back his bike, and that was that. It was like half of his identity, and you wouldn't just steal a person's face, right? Though if he thought on it, that didn't seem too out of the way for Derek sometimes. Sighing, he rolled his shoulders at him and stepped away from the van. 

“You'll figure it out eventually, man. Just...try not to get bitten or killed or anything. What city are you even from, anyway?” Derek raised both brows this time, and Stiles was pretty sure he was quickly becoming fluent in eyebrow-ese. He took back the earlier thought that Derek's face was always stoic and unchanging; he had plenty of expressions once you knew to look for the subtleties. Weird. Stiles shook his head and waved a hand to prompt his answer.

“San Diego. Though my family and I used to have a house in a town called Beacon Hills, but it was burned down on The Last Day. I was five at the time.” For a moment, Stiles is taken aback by the revelation that Derek was alive on The Last Day, though he looks about the right age. Then his mind whirls into the fact that Derek used to live in _Beacon Hills._ That was some kind of insane coincidence and Stiles was sure his jaw dropped open. 

“That's—I'm from Beacon Hills!” he almost shouted, just keeping his voice low enough not to attract any attention as he waved a hand animatedly. Derek looks almost as shocked as he is, but Stiles is almost vibrating with excitement and there's no way he'll be able to get a word in edgewise. Not a single chance.

“Oh man, I think I know where your house is! Scott and I used to grab our guns and sneak out there, past the fence and hang out in the middle of the woods back before we were in Sapiens together! I never knew anyone had lived there, though, I always thought it had been abandoned since before The Last Day. It was so cool to go out there and tell each other stories and just be quiet, you know?” Apparently Derek didn't know, because he was back to looking at Stiles with a face that looked confused and stern enough to stop Stiles mid-tirade. He puts his arms down and quickly recomposes himself, moving away from Derek slightly and chewing the inside of his lip. 

“So, uh, yeah. We found that. It's still there, mostly.” Moving around to the front of the van, he opens the passenger door and peers in. Thank god, Derek was smart enough to bring some water on this trip. No matter what time of year or how fast you think you'll be going, you _always_ bring water. It's uncomfortable for him to turn his back to Derek, though, so he leans in and snatches the water bottles off the floorboard as fast as he can and nearly brains himself sliding back out. Turning, he tosses one bottle at Derek and somehow isn't surprised when he catches it one-handed. Creepy, but neat. 

“Staying hydrated is the most important lesson of survival in the desert. Take at least a sip every hour, or else you could be dehydrated before you know it. Not a cool way to go.” As though his words were absolutely sage wisdom, Stiles cracked open his own bottle and took a healthy swig. 

They end up not really saying anything to each other for the next hour, Stiles quickly zoning out and sitting in the front seat of the van, knee jiggling to an unheard tune. Derek is leaning against the van, and the both of them are waiting for the moment that feels right enough for Derek to make his call to his pack. Waiting is boring, and Stiles hates boring, but Derek looks like he would rather have his teeth pulled with a pipe wrench than hold a conversation with Stiles. Maybe he's just grumpy because a human actually had to save him, and that thought makes Stiles chuckle just a little bit. Eventually, though, he gets tired of waiting. The sun is starting to set, and maybe it's cliché, but this is the perfect time for howls to ring out over the desert. So Stiles gets out of the car and gestures at Derek nonchalantly, standing back and stretching out his legs slowly. They've got bruises from being hurled into the van earlier, but he's had worse.

“Whenever you're ready, dude.” Derek nods and steps away from the van, setting down the water bottle Stiles didn't notice he'd been holding. About a fourth of it is gone already, and Stiles is actually surprised that Derek decided to follow his advice. Not that it isn't good advice, but he thought the opportunity to spite him would have definitely been taken. He jerks his attention back to Derek when the other man straightens up and rolls his head, fangs pushing past his lips and hair sprouting across his face. This time, the process isn't a terrible show of anger and aggression which leads Stiles to be fascinated by the changes happening in front of him. How is it possible to change your phenotype so easily, altering bone and tooth structure just like that? 

Then Derek starts to howl, and Stiles is starting to believe in magic just a tiny bit. There isn't really a way to describe the sound because there aren't enough adjectives to describe it properly. It's loud and confident, but there's no missing the mournful undercurrent to the message. Stiles doesn't have to be a werewolf or even understand that much about them to sense the tone of _please come and find me, I need your help_ that is unmistakable in the cry of a wolf separated from his pack. It's almost deafeningly loud, too, but Stiles resists the urge to cover his ears because for some unknown reason he wants to hear the entire thing. Sad, lofty, and lifting into the skies until Derek finally finishes and falls silent. Blinking, Stiles licks his lips and looks away hastily. It was an oddly personal moment, and he feels on fire with awkwardness right now. 

“Yeah, uh, I think they heard you on the moon. Thanks, though.” He shuffles his feet and leans against the solidity of the van again, wondering what on earth he should be doing right now. Before he gets the chance to say anything idiotic, though, returning howls cut waver faintly through the air. One high and loud, another of a deeper and more melodic timbre, and one that practically cuts to a low baritone. They continue for a moment, then break off at varying intervals.

“Isaac, Erica, and Boyd.” comments Derek, looking in the direction that the howls came from. His shoulders sag a little in what must be relief, and Stiles actually wonders if it's difficult to be away from the pack. Then he catches himself and thinks about how this morning he wouldn't have given a shit, and this afternoon only changes a few things. 

Only a few.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Whew! Sorry that there wasn't as much action in this chapter, I promise it will re-commence soon. For now I just wanted to develop their interaction a bit, and maybe make things a teeny smidgen less tense between the two. Though goodness knows they won't admit that they needed each other to get out of this to everyone else. 
> 
> Up next: Derek has some explaining to do to his pack, Stiles gets his baby back, they decide to cut through to the next NPU outpost, and maybe we'll finally figure out what happened to Scott. 
> 
> Enjoy!


	4. Innocent Until Proven Dead

“I'm still really, unfathomably pissed off at you for arresting me and trying to have me killed. Know that. Even if it is my actual designation in life to be almost killed on a regular basis, I do _not_ appreciate you trying to make it happen sooner. Just because I saved you from getting your sorry werewolf hide eaten does not mean that we are friends, that I owe you any more information, or that I forgive you for trying to have me executed in probably brutal ways.” He was actually finding it somewhere within him to jab an accusing finger at the werewolf, who was looking at him with a mixture of surprise and irritation. Maybe not the wisest move, considering that Stiles now no longer had the distinct advantage of a weapon on his person to guarantee his survival, but he knew that Derek wasn't going to kill him. In fact, the look on his face said that he was hurt by the suggestion. No sympathy from Stiles, though, as he had decided to hold his ground on the matter and that ground was in the firmly pissed-off territory. You didn't just get to go from murderous in the morning to sympathetic humanitarian at night, and certainly not because someone decided it was better for their own sanity to save you. Derek should be considering himself lucky that Stiles was mature enough to not be punching his face in right now. 

“I mean, who knows how many other humans you've done that to.” That part wasn't something he meant to say, but he's fuming now and glaring at Derek, wondering if it actually occurred to the guy that randomly threatening people with their own death was a 

“None.” Stiles has already opened his mouth to counter whatever Derek said, but that cuts him off quickly and he furrows his brow. Okay then, what gives? Did Stiles break some sort of higher law that deserved such severe punishment just by riding his bike around and doing his damn job? It wasn't as though he had been threatening anyone. God, this was making less and less sense by the second, and Derek was not being informative at the moment.

“Then why me?”

“You were the first human I've arrested so far out here. We've only been operational from this post for a week.” If Stiles was seeing right in the fading light, Derek actually looked sort of embarrassed about the whole thing. As though he was ashamed to be out here in the middle of the desert, relegated to an apparently insignificant area for the early part of his career.

“What, did you lose a bet or something? Still not forgiving you for trying to _have me executed_ , by the way. That one's going to stay on the ever-growing “Things I Hate About You” list.” Derek actually rolled his eyes at Stiles, and Stiles rolled his right back. If he wanted to argue like a five year old, Stiles could argue like a five year old. Just because Derek and company thought they were the big bad wolves of the Mojave did not mean they could just fuck around with his life and not expect him to be angry about it, and that was the bottom line. To his alarm, Derek actually straightened up and faced him head-on, looking for all the world like he was about to separate Stiles' head from his shoulders. 

“No, I did not lose a bet. I chose to come back here of my own free will, because it was my home once and I thought it would be a good place for my pack and I to settle. Maybe I jumped the gun a little on having you executed, but it is the law. A law I didn't make, in case you were wondering.” Stiles snorted and rolled his eyes. Great cop-out, Hale. Blame it on the moral corruption of another to get out of responsibility.

“Yeah, well that doesn't excuse you from being wrong when you obey it. You were still going to kill me over a _tattoo_.” Was he pushing his luck with the origin of all the things that go bump in the night stories? Yes, he was, and it was probably a stupid idea, but Stiles was not precisely known for being cool and level-headed all of the time. 

“You're right. It doesn't.” Derek's shoulders slumped forward a bit and he sighed, then hardened his face and stomped off around the back of the van. Shocked, Stiles said nothing as he went and stood there for a long moment, waiting to see what he was going to do. When nothing happened for the span of a good three minutes, he decided that for once he would let the issue drop. Had Derek actually seemed _guilty?_ Werewolves weren't the kind to give themselves over to guilt or remorse, not from what he knew of them. Frowning, Stiles opened the passenger door of the van and got in, moving to crank the engine to a low stall and turn the heat on. If it made him uncomfortable to realize that he too had jumped the gun by pinning werewolves as dangerous killers and being a huge hypocrite, that was his own damn fault. Fuck. It was wrong that they'd arrested him and tossed him around for no good reason, that much was clear, but on the other hand Stiles had to wonder if he would have acted differently in the same place. Coming to the realization that the answer was “no” made him want to bash his own brains out on the dashboard. A strange creature wandering onto his turf with weapons and possible harmful intent? It was his actual job to end things like that, and yet here he was, being grouchy because Hale had been doing his job. The problem turned itself back and forth in his mind, rolling over the fact that he was both a human that deserved decent treatment, and that he was a Sapiens who blindly protected. God, the whole thing was too much to think about after today. Stiles rubbed a hand over his tired face, surprised at the soreness behind his eyes and blinking blearily into the falling darkness of the desert. 

He nearly leaped out of his skin when Derek slid into the driver's side of the van, a hand shooting out to grab the handle of his bat in case he needed to defend himself. Derek made no other movement, just staring down at his arm, and Stiles realized that he'd revealed his tattoo. The dying light dripped over the black ink, a drawing beneath his skin that both gave him identity and took it away. Not Stiles Stilinski, son of the Sheriff of Beacon Hills, but Stiles the Sapien. Stiles the savior of the dead souls that still wandered this world in their staggering, rotting shells. He retracted his hand and swallowed, fighting the urge to cradle the tattoo like a wound away from Derek's glare.

“Why did you join?” Stiles has nothing else to say, so his mouth supplies a quip before his mind manages to really catch up.

“I thought I told you that I don't owe you any more information.” Derek just shrugs, and turns the dial of the heating vent so that it blows more directly on him.

“You don't owe me. I just want to know, and I think you'd tell me anyway.” Stiles narrows his eyes and leans back, unsure if he should believe that Derek is being serious about this and not screwing with him for his own amusement. Derek waits patiently enough for his response, though and Stiles has to close his mouth around another snarky comment before answering.

“There's not one reason, honestly. I can't sit still. My best friend was joining. I like mechanics and finding out how things work from their smallest pieces up. My mom died when I was a kid and my dad is busy being the Sheriff and everyone has to do something or else they don't eat. Maybe it's secretly some noble shit like believing that everyone deserves a proper death, but I don't know. I'm just hungry.” He flexed his arm, staring at the tattoo before dropping it back against the seat. He looked over at Derek, wondering whether or not he thought Stiles shallower for that. “Not very impressive, I know.”  
Derek shook his head, a tiny motion that Stiles barely noticed, and wondered for a long second if it was real. 

“They aren't bad reasons.” Stiles shrugs, flexing his hand and pulling his bat up from the floorboards. Even though he washes the thing regularly, there is still dark blood and gore coating the nails, hiding in all the cracks and stains painted permanently onto the wood.

“I kill dead things. I give people dignity in death, and they give me the means by which to further my life. Get out of the car and I'll show you.” Derek eyes the bat warily, but Stiles just opens the van's door and steps out into the cold night air. Night always falls hard on the Mojave, and sucks all of the heat of the day out of the ground. Shuffling over to the two zoms he felled earlier, Stiles rolls one onto its back with the end of his bat. Jeans and t-shirt guy, most of his head gone now, but still there. Still a body. Stiles reaches down and gingerly grabs the arm, avoiding the open wounds on it and holding it up for Derek to see.   
“Does it make you sick?” He asked distantly, and even more distantly still he heard Derek's voice. “No.”  
“It should. We should both be puking our guts up behind the van right now.” He turns the man's arm, grasping his wrist firmly and pointing to the hand. On it, a gold ring still glints after twenty years of wear and rot all around it. “He was married to somebody. He probably had kids, a house like you see in the old magazines they find. Deaton said that people like this guy used to watch these sort of games, sports, on what they call a television. It's like looking into another world, and he probably used to watch those games a lot. Maybe. Or maybe he did something else. Maybe he liked bacon, I know I do. This guy, though, he used to be somebody. A person.”   
Rotating the arm further, Stiles pointed to a disgusting black ooze coating the outside of the man's arm and causing his flesh to ripple up and down in jagged edges. “That's his bite. Arms are one of the most likely locations, after that the legs, then the chest. That's where he was supposed to die and he didn't, he just stopped being a person. Instead he might have eaten his whole family, or turned them too. Either way, he was just a shell walking around until he tried chowing down on the wrong guy and I put a baseball bat into his cerebellum. He'd been dead a long time and his body was just desecrated ground, all the things that made him a person sucked out. So I killed him, and gave him his dignity back.” Standing up, Stiles dropped the arm back down to the man's side and wiped his hand on his pants.  
“That's what the idea is, anyway. I brained this zom, and if he were a job like the one I was on earlier, his death would pay for my dinner.” Derek raised an eyebrow at this, tearing his gaze away from the fallen zom and looking over at Stiles.

“If he were a job, that would mean someone in his living family sent me out to go and end his life. You know, put him out of his misery. Then they give me something valuable as payment, like a certain amount of food or water. Medicine too, even a favor in return. One thing for another; I scratch their back and they scratch mine. I give respect where no others can, but I'm not a charity operation. I need to live.” With that, he kicked the dead zom's side, rolling it back over and looking to Derek. He looked dark and quiet for a moment, as though he were running through a thousand things to say. Frankly, Stiles didn't care much if the werewolf didn't like his business, for it was the means by which he ate and that was one hand he didn't care to bite. 

“You give better reasons than most other bounty hunters I've met in the past.” Stiles is about to say something, to explain that he's not an actual bounty hunter, that Sapiens aren't like that, when the sound of a roaring engine cuts through the night air. Headlights flash in their eyes and Derek's reflect the light—god, tapetum lucidum was present in werewolves too?--and a white pickup truck roars to a stop. Someone leaps out of the bed of the truck and the doors fly open, dramatically ejecting two bodies that turn out to be Erica and a broad-shouldered man that must be Boyd. Snarls and clicks signal that Stiles has guns trained on his body for the second time today, but before he can even drop his own weapon Derek is standing in front of him. 

“Wait, hold your fire! He's not going to be a threat to us, not any longer.” _A threat? When was I ever a threat to a group of well-armed werewolves?_ “He has important information, and so do I. There's a horde of walkers passing through the region, and if they continue travelling at their current rate, they'll hit the main base and a human town. This is serious, damn serious, and we all need to get back to the temporary base right now.” Hesitation hangs thick in the air for a moment, Erica still pointing her gun at Stiles' chest until he's positive that she doesn't need to open fire because his heart will explode out of his chest unassisted. Then the gun is snapped down and he meets golden eyes in the glare of the headlights, wondering what he did to deserve the disgust in them before she's waltzing away to the cab of the truck. When Isaac and Derek pile into the front, Stiles figures that he'll be camping out in the back with Boyd, and willingly vaults into the bed. Better not to bitch about it and not risk his throat getting clawed out by whichever irritable werewolf reached him first. Strangely enough when Boyd hops into the truck behind him, he doesn't make Stiles move around or sit as far away as possible. He just amiably sits down, laying out his long legs, and gives Stiles a quiet once-over.

“Stiles.” The pickup roars into motion and they're swerving off across the desert floor, both of them having to brace themselves to keep from tumbling across the hard metal bed. Once they even out a bit, Boyd actually extends an open hand to Stiles in what he supposes is an invitation to shake. It's the most human gesture he's seen yet, and politely drops his own hand into Boyd's and shakes twice. 

“Vernon Boyd. You must be the Sapiens member that was arrested earlier today. I am wondering how you survived, if it's not prying.” Stiles blinked at him, brows raising momentarily as he considered it. Might as well tell the truth when it was going to get aired out anyway. 

“I should be. He'd be one ungrateful asshole if he killed me after I saved his life for no damn reason at all.” He doesn't have to see Boyd's face to read the surprise on it, he knows it's there. So Stiles launches into the full story about his day, the horde, their fight with the other zoms...maybe he leaves out a few snippets of their conversation, and that's okay. When the whole story is out, Stiles is suddenly hit by a wave of exhaustion that makes him sink into the bed of the truck, unreasonably glad for the stability of metal in this situation. Boyd doesn't make any comments and Stiles isn't expecting him to. They just tear up the silence of a cold California night with the roaring of their wheels across the flat land, moonlight turning the ground pale and reflective. Stiles could probably wax pretty poetic about it if he wasn't trying to keep himself from passing out right here and waking up eaten or worse.

“Just go to sleep, kid. It's a long ride.” 

He's actually tired enough to sleep in a truck full of werewolves, and that says something.

Somewhere in the night, they wake him and everyone shuffles into the small brick building. There's a loud scraping sound and it takes Stiles five steps to realize he's dragging his bat along the ground. Shouldering it, he follows someone's directions to something that looks vaguely like a bed, and sleeps.

He doesn't know what time it is when he jerks awake to shouting voices, but there's sunlight coming in a window and he's holding his bat upright, so he decides to ignore that fact for more pressing matters.

“Why the hell should we shelter him? So he tossed you his weapon once, that doesn't make him a good person! He could be using us to find where the base is, or planning to kill us all—you never know with these werewolf-hating motherfuckers!” The voice is intense and female, and it takes him a fractured moment to put a face to it. Standing, he moves out of the small room he's in and into the main part of the building, finding himself across from Derek's office. Erica is standing in it and shouting over his desk at him with one finger almost sticking into his chest.

“I don't.” He mumbles, and his voice is harsh from sleep. Erica whips her head around, and they have another stare-down that he's too tired for. “Not all werewolves, anyway. Like I don't hate Scott, he was my best friend. But if I find the one that turned him, I'll skin it alive.” A snarl forms on her lips and he's unsure whether to physically or verbally defend himself when Derek moves around the desk and into his line of vision.

“You know a werewolf named Scott? That wouldn't happen to be Scott McCall, would it?”

The baseball bat hits the floor with a dull clatter and Stiles launches himself forward, crossing the room and almost grabbing Derek's shoulders before he remembers himself.

“You know what happened to Scott?”  
Boyd and Isaac have suddenly appeared, surely hearing the commotion and coming to check it out. Stiles takes a step back and looks around, both waiting for a response and terrified of what he'll receive. 

It's Isaac who speaks, the first real sentence he thinks he's heard the man say.

“Not Scott McCall, the Alpha Peter is training?”

It's at that point that Stiles really and truly starts freaking out.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hoo boy, that got exciting fast.   
> As you all may have noticed, I'm doing canon events somewhat out of order. Derek's home burned when he was much younger, and while I think I'm going to include the Argent family business in this, Kate and Derek have never been involved. Erica and Boyd are alive (and will hopefully stay that way) and a few other things are shifted around. I hope no one minds it.

**Author's Note:**

> I promise there's gonna be more dialogue in the next one, sorry everybody. I just love zombie AUs and went slightly nuts writing out backstory for this one. I hope everyone likes gratuitous zombie gore as much as I do!
> 
> Also forgive my lack of knowledge on the geography of California. I've never actually been, and I apologize if I mucked things up a bit.


End file.
